2 comments:

"My time in Saudi Arabia bolstered my conviction that an austere form of Islam (Wahhabism) married to a politicised Islam (Islamism) is wreaking havoc in the world. This anger-ridden ideology, an ideology I once advocated, is not only a threat to Islam and Muslims, but to the entire civilised world."

A very good read, Prof. Lipstadt. I've copied it to file. However, I have a problem with Ed Hussain's assertion that "this anger-ridden ideology" is tangential of the religion of Islam proper.

Ajai Sahni has remarked that "there is no locus of terrorism." Islamic terrorism can be found wherever there are believers. Natan Sharansky in his new book Defending Identity states that the "grievance-resolution" approach (an approach the Saudi students of Mr. Hussain's classroom were obviously obsessed with)"not only fails to solve the real conflict but helps perpetuate it. It fails to deal with ideology and the methods for teaching and spreading it. It doesn't address the war of ideas that is being waged--the outpourings of hate propaganda against America and the West, the anti-Semitism widespread throughout the Muslim world, the brainwashing for suicide-terrorism, the destruction of democratic initiatives throughout the Arab world. For it seems easier to deal with the grievances and to press for their removal than to confront the ideological motives, the ideological methods, and the ideological ends that are the true basis of the hatred."

Of course, the West will always have an abundance of incurious apologists and sciolists like Richard Hutton who, by reason of their partisan religious and/or multicultural ebullience, refuse to appreciate the dire relevance of Islam-inspired racism in a country [Saudi Arabia] where Islam has achieved preponderance; where any form of dissent is either crushed or, if the dissent favours a "pure" and more zealous approach to Islam, is encouraged and strengthened financially, thereby exacerbating those insalubrious social norms Mr. Hussain is distressed about.

I've written elsewhere that a religion cannot be judged by its execeptional personalities but only by how that same religion manifests itself within the masses of those who adhere to its tenets. In this sense Islam has failed mankind miserably and has proven that its racist ideology is insalubrious to mankind.

An interesting study which suggests that it is not religious devotion per se, but group religious practices which make a person more willing to die in a suicide attack "for the cause": http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/02/attendance_at_religious_services_but_not_religious_devotion.php